[ecrea] CFP. Urban Food Futures: ICTs and Opportunities

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CFP. URBAN FOOD FUTURES: ICTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK
December 14, 2011
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/events/?id=472

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Food is a vital foundation of all human life. It is essential to a myriad
of political, socio-cultural, economic and environmental practices
throughout history. However, those practices of food production,
consumption, and distribution have the potential to now go through
immensely transformative shifts as network technologies become
increasingly embedded in every domain of contemporary life. Information
and communication technologies (ICTs) are one of the key foundations of
global functionality and sustenance today and undoubtedly will continue to
present new challenges and opportunities for the future. As such, this
one-day symposium will bring together leading scholars across disciplines
to address challenges and opportunities at the intersection of food and
ICTs in everyday urban environment. In particular, the discussion will
revolve around the question: What are the key roles that network
technologies play in re-shaping the food systems at micro- to macroscopic
level?

The symposium will contribute a unique perspective on urban food futures
through the lens of network society paradigm where ICTs enable innovations
in production, organisation, and communication within society. Some of the
topics addressed will include encouraging transparency in food commodity
chains; value of cultural understanding and communication in global food
sustainability; and technologies to social inclusion; all of which evoke
and examine the question surrounding networked individuals as changes
catalysts for urban food futures. The event will provide an avenue for new
discussions and speculations on key issues surrounding urban food futures
in the network era, with a particular focus on bottom-up micro actions
that challenge the existing food systems towards a broader sociocultural,
political, technological, and environmental transformations.

One central area of concern is that current systems of food production,
distribution, and consumption do not ensure food security for the future,
but rather seriously threaten it. With the recent unprecedented scale of
urban growth and rise of middle-class, the problem continues to intensify.
This situation requires extensive distribution networks to feed urban
residents, and therefore poses significant infrastructural challenges to
both the public and private sectors. The symposium will also address the
transferability of citizen empowerment that network technologies enable as
demonstrated in various significant global political transformations from
the bottom-up, such as the recent Egyptian Youth Revolution. Another key
theme of the discussion will be the role of ICTs (and the practices that
they mediate) in fostering transparency in commodity chains. The symposium
will ask what differences these technologies can make on the practices of
food consumption and production.

After discussions, we will initiate an international network of
food-thinkers and actors that will function as a platform for knowledge
sharing and collaborations. The participants will be invited to engage in
planning for the on-going future development of the network.

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PARTICIPATION

In order to keep the symposium interactive and focused, it will be limited
to invited participants. Papers will be selected for presentation at the
symposium based on peer review of abstracts. We welcome submissions of
original work from diverse disciplinary backgrounds including, but not
limited to, urban informatics, human-computer interaction, sustainability,
design, humanities and future studies.

Interested participants should submit a 500 word abstract, and 250 word
biography, by 28 October 2011 to Dr. Jaz Hee-jeong Choi
((h.choi /at/ qut.edu.au)<mailto:(h.choi /at/ qut.edu.au)>).

The authors of successful abstracts will be notified by 7 November 2011.

We are currently in the process of ensuring that post-workshop publication
of selected papers will follow in a special journal issue.

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PARTNERS

This symposium is a collaboration with the Institute for Creative
Industries and Innovation (QUT), the Creative Industries Faculty (QUT),
and the Urban Informatics Research Lab (QUT).


We hope to see you there!





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